FLIGHT SA208 and Beyond...

South African Airways is awesome! On my flight from Washington to Johannesburg, via Dakar, Senegal, I had a cushy legroom seat, with enough space to fully extend the pins on my 6'4'' frame.
The service was incredible, the passengers were friendly, the media system offered a deep list of movies that can be played and paused at the viewers discretion, the accents people spoke with were eclectic and intriguing, and of course the rolls were delicious. I was loving Africa before I even left Washington.

8 hours in the air, two more hours on the land in Dakar to refuel, and another 7 hours in the air later, and I was still just as happy of a camper as ever. The plane was half empty, providing me with all the space I needed to go on pre-meal strolls, consistently change seats so that I could check out the views of Africa from both wings of the plane, and even do a few sets of squats as part of my physical therapy program. Basically, the plane was my jungle gym, and I had a lot of fun riding down all the slides.

My first day in Cape Town, I was greeted by warm, engaging people and a natural surrounding unlike anything I have experienced. Mid-morning, the clouds broke through to reveal one of my soon to be closest companions of the semester, Table Mountain. On sunny days, Table Mountain stands out as a prominent piece of tree covered rock, with a dropped face and a flat top as suggested by its name. On cloudy days, the evaporated moisture plays games with Table Mountain, settling on its flat top and flowing down over its edges just before picking up into the sky once more, like a wizard's cauldron, boiling over with magical steam.

My first Sunday in Cape Town, I joined a group of over 400 international students on what would be the best bus ride of my entire life: The Cape Peninsula Tour. It was a one day journey from UCT to the tip of the Cape peninsula and back, yet the oceans, mountains, and wildlife we saw would take a lifetime to properly digest. Our tour guide, Abe, pumping with adrenaline and enthusiasm for every place we visited, spoke non-stop to us in a wonderful Afrikaners accent, rolling rrrs, and roaring laughter abound. At first we headed through the downtown part of the Cape, passing some of both the expected and unexpected sights you would see in an urban area. In a matter of minutes, we passed by THE Parliament, an ex-slave house, the stage where Nelson Mandela gave his opening speech to the people of Africa after being released from Prison, and a bridge that is simply cut off in the middle of the air and leads no where. This city is oozing with life, contradiction, beauty, and history. Although Cape Town is considered a first world, modern city, the fact is that there was a legal policy of apartheid only 20 years ago. Sights such as the hanging, incomplete bridge serve as a reminder that this country still has crucial gaps that need to be overcome.

The bus ride to peninsula heaven continued as we hooked around the downtown area and slung towards the beautiful soccer stadium that was built right on the water in preparation for FIFA 2010. Enormous in size, I can't even imagine what they are going to do with this beast when 2010 passes. This stadium stands out as perhaps the biggest landmark in all of Cape Town, only to be dwarfed by the titanic Table-Mountain. Table-Mountain: glorious, horrific, and constantly beckoning me to challenge it, is a spectacle that can be seen from pretty much everywhere I go, especially on walks up to campus. Anytime I forget where I am, all I need to do is look up and out, and Table-Mountain instantly reminds: I am in Africa. This is not my first intimate relationship with a mountain; I’ve gotten to know the ranges of Israel quite well and I’ve even had a love affair with whistler that lasted for 4 years. But something about Table-Mountains’ steep faces, narrow shoots, jungle green coating, and overall prominent presence is just so foreign to my previous experiences with the rocks of the world. I am intrigued…

….Table Mountain remained in sight as the Peninsula tour to never land journeyed, passing beach after beach of G-d’s purest grace. Giant boulders stacked on top of each other, with houses built into the cliffs, lead down to a beautiful sea of rolling swells, surfers, dolphins, and yes, even sharks. Camps Bay was a classic, as the clash of the waves into the half sunk boulders unleashed a cool, mysterious, mist into the air that made me question whether I was awake or merely dreaming. Only being allowed to soak in the view for a mere ten minutes, I vowed to myself that I would come back to Camps Bay soon.

I've already been back twice, the second time meeting a friendly local who has gotten so close to the wildlife of Cape Town that he is already on a name by name basis with a few of the local creatures: Damien the Shark and Nelson the Segal are two of his favorites. Pointing out to sea as I was first meeting him, he claimed that Damien shark was playing “kill the seals” out at sea. Despite my 20-15 vision, my untrained eyes didn’t manage to catch a glance at Damien, although I did see a shark spotting helicopter fly by, in the hopes of ensuring that Damien’s seal lunch didn’t include a human dessert. But don't worry folks, the shark attack that happened around here a month ago was a pure fluke. It was an overcast day, and the black flags were up. On a standard sunny day, the shark spotters surround the mountaintops, and with their expert vision, they glance through their binoculars to see if they notice any sharks swimming under water, miles away. I'm not really sure how a few guys on top of the mountain can manage to cover the entire ocean with their bare eyesight, but somehow, they make it work. If they notice a shark, they merely give a shout out to their helicopter friends, who fly in to get a closer look. Of course, once the shark has been spotted, a siren at the beach sounds, at which time the surfers calmly wait till a killer (no pun intended) outside set comes in. After the helicopter confirms the shark’s location out at sea, the surfers merely paddle out and continue on with the day. The shark siren rings regularly several times a day, and the surfers always take it in stride. One thing I have learned about people in Cape Town: they are very very very laid back. Even when a shark is on the prowl, they will do things on their own time and not be rushed. Besides, Damien is nice to the locals.

The Peninsula tour went on, as we explored the lay out of the country just beside the Cape. There we drove through rolling hills of lush wineries. There is supposed to be a nice tour, where you can bike around from winery to winery and sample all the wines as far as you can go. If you make it through the taste tests of over 10 wine fields without falling off your bike you get a free drink! We also visited a beach that was covered in jackass penguins. In the penguin world, gender roles are reversed: the males laid on the babies keeping them safe, while the females just chilled out in the cooler sand down by the water. Penguins on a beach! Another reason why Cape Town is such a unique place: Penguins, sharks, and people of all different races living in perfect harmony. Of course if the shark attack last month was the only problem of this city, then the world we live in would be a much better place. But as you all know, Cape Town and South Africa does indeed have its tragic side, which I will get more into another time.

Onward, onwards, to the Peninsula itself. The hills got stronger, the trees got lower. On Cape Peninsula, the winds are so intense that trees can't grow much higher than 2 meters, because the wind will knock it all down. On one part of the cape, all the trees are pointing down and out towards one direction, because the wind doesn't allow them to grow in a normal upwards line. We drove through the nature reserve that is the cape peninsula, and on the way we see an official road sign that simply says: "Baboon!". I guess the exclamation mark tells you everything you need to know, because later, we see another sign, this time with a baboon sitting on it. We took pictures from the bus, a safe distance away, because as cute as baboons look, they have the biggest canines in proportion to their body in the animal kingdom. I guess the exclamation point was really suggesting: Baboon (if you try to feed them they will tear your face off) !

Finally, we hit Cape Point. The South-Western most part in the Cape peninsula. Be sure to note that clearly. Cape Point is not the tip of Africa, and Cape Point is also not where the Indian and Atlantic ocean split. Rather it is Cape Augulus that is the location of both the tip of Africa and the "official" divider between the Indian and the Atlantic. Cape Point often gets the credit for that, but it is merely a lie that has been used to bolster tourism and prove how gullible people are. Yet, Cape Point is still a beautiful place. After a sprint-hike (when I hike- I SPRINT!) up to the lighthouse, in which I passed by tourists from perhaps every continent in the world, I arrived at a miraculous viewpoint where all I could see was swelling water on all three sides of me, and lush green mountains in the distance across the Bay. My breath was stolen and never given back. That spot will forever own a piece of my soul. I sprinkboked ( that's the name of South Africa's favorite buck and also the way I describe myself when I hike) my way down to the bottom, where giant growths of seaweed bounced up and down in the wadding water. It was a scene straight from avatar, of oceans and rocks from another world. I took a picture by the famous Cape Point sign, shed a tear, and then hopped back for an incredible bus ride back.

The entire bus except for a few spirited souls went to sleep, and I sat in my seat, relishing in the views and experiences of the day, as a South African mix CD that Tour Guide Abe made played in the background. The music, the scenery as the sun was in that perfect position a few degrees above the horizon, the feeling of having experienced so much of the glory of this planet in one day, the stillness of everyone on the bus- the beauty of that moment was all too much for me. That simple bus ride back from the Cape Peninsula was one of the happiest moments of my life. So enthralled by the music, I asked Abe if he has any extra copies of his mix CDS. He said no, and I let it go, not trying to hold on to a moment was unique in its time and place. When, the bus finally reached the destination, Abe reached out to me with an extended arm, CD in hand, saying: "You better as hell not make copies of that, or I'll kill you, bru!" I gave Abe a big and grateful thank you, as a I cupped the shiny disk in my hand. It was one of the greatest presents I have ever received in my life.




...A lot has happened between that day and today. Hikes, meeting people, joining societies, going to beaches, climbing boulders by the sea, eating a wide range of delicious vegetarian food, meeting more people, spending shabbat in a few nice Jewish communities, meeting old Jews, young Jews, and surfing Jews. I went to one shul in which there was an incredible choir. They performed the sharmal sheik tune for Adon Olam at the end of services. Butterflies flapped in my stomach as the melody lifted me to a higher world. I'll spare the rest of the details of my first few weeks, although the events of today are noteworthy.

Wanting to integrate into UCT society, I signed up for O-week, which is generally made up of South African First Year students. Being a third year US student, it would seem I would be a little out of place, but all has worked out well, especially today.

Today, the entire first year class woke up at 3:30 in the morning to embark on an event that is well know across the city as SAX APPEAL. Basically, the idea is to get the first year students involved in city wide magazine sale to raise funds for a UCT volunteer organization, SHAWCO. The magazine, called SAX APPEAL, is a satirical magazine that plays on local and international events. In pursuit of gaining attention, people dress up in all sorts of crazy costumes that make them look like SAX offenders (south Africans say it’s a play in words, but its really just changing one letter to another, and turning it into a word that no longer makes sense for this context. Strange, eh?) In a sense anything goes, as long as its attention grabbing. Many of the boys dressed up in orange jumpsuits, girls dressed up in the usual go-out style, just with added make up, and sometimes brighter colors, and I decided to wear a bikini top strapped around my head, in such a way as it looked like a rugby helmet. (By the way, I won best costume at my station, and got a free pass to a club next week. My costume was effortless, simple, but the creativity was appreciated-I didn’t see anyone else with a bikini on their head.) Amidst noise and commotion, the students all met at a set of bus stops at 4:30 in the morning, boarded the buses, and then were shipped out to various and various traffic lights ( robots is what they call them here) of Greater Cape Town. Upon arriving at the traffic lights, we were met by an organizer, who handed us a stack of Sax Appeal magazines, where upon our objective was to stand in the middle of the street and sell as many of them as we possibly could, with all the proceeds going to charity. Man, was I in my element.

For the first hour, traffic was weak and people weren't buying. Since the people weren’t coming to me, I decided to go to them. At around 6 AM, I coupled up with a wonderfully friendly Cape Town local UCT girl, who was extremely excitable and roared like a lion whenever she laughed. Along with the fact that she was dressed up in a devil's costume, she was the perfect candidate for teaming up with me to wreck some early morning havoc in the, nice quite, upscale suburb of Cape Town, Constantia. At a little past 6 we rang our first doorbell and the lady who replied said no to the magazines, reminded us of the time of day, and cut the conversation short. So we waited till 7 and then we embarked on a mission of walking through the upscale neighborhood and ringing door bells one by one. At one of the first houses, a man answered the buzzer, saying that he knows what SAX APPEAL is but that we are supposed to sell at the lights and stick to the traditions. This annual magazine sale has been going on for years, and many of the grown ups in Cape Town have fond memories of selling the magazine themselves. Although I respect tradition, when it comes to raising money for charity, I am always eager to be innovative, so I ignored this man’s advice, and together with my newfound friend continued ringing door bells one by one. Before long, we were met by much success. One woman who we visited already bought one, but through the combination of my selling skills and foreign accent, I was able to convince her to buy another, just for kicks. Another woman spotted us in her car while she was driving down the street and held out 60 rand in her hand, screaming: “I’ll have three please.” Finally, one woman, was so excited but our excitement, that she brought over 100 rand and said she’ll take 5 because she didn’t have enough change. We slapped her five, gave each other big hugs, and screamed at our huge success: SAX APPEAL! CHARITY!

When we returned back to our main intersection, I stood in the blistering heat along fellow UCT students, begging drivers stopped at the red light to buy the comical magazine. I must have screamed the words SAX APPEAL and CHARITY over 1000 times over the course of the day. I sweated, I small talked, and I hustled. But most importantly, I sold magazines! Never again, will I dismiss the street sellers without a friendly smile or comment. Street selling is some tough stuff, and I almost got hit by a car multiple times. By the end of the day, together with the girl, I sold a total of 31 magazines. Driving back in the bus to UCT, I looked out the window, feeling exhausted yet energized at the same time, pumped up by the fact that as part of the freshman class of UCT, we raised a lot of money for SHAWCO, and had an incredibly fun day.

(most blog entries won't be this long, so if you are discouraged by the length and details of this entry, please give the next one another try, ay?)